The federal government has reversed an earlier instruction that required a group of people known as "lost Canadians" to hand in their Canadian citizenship certificates, CBC News reports.

The reversal concerns individuals who had applied to the federal government for proof of citizenship — a document often called a citizenship certificate — after learning they were Canadian, or believed they were Canadian, by descent. Ottawa had previously ordered some members of this group to surrender the certificates they had been issued. That order is now withdrawn.

The people at the centre of this story are commonly called "lost Canadians": people who are Canadian citizens under law, but who have faced difficulty proving their status because of gaps, cutoffs, and drafting problems in older citizenship legislation. Over the years, court rulings and legislative fixes have restored or confirmed citizenship for many of them, but disputes over documentation have continued.

Under the process at issue, an applicant who successfully proves their entitlement receives a citizenship certificate, which serves as official proof of Canadian citizenship. In the cases covered by the now-reversed instruction, the government had issued certificates and then told the holders to give them back.

With the reversal, those individuals no longer face the demand to surrender their proof-of-citizenship documents. CBC News reports the change as a decision by Ottawa to back away from the surrender order for this group.

Anyone who has received a letter from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) asking them to return a citizenship certificate, or who is unsure whether this reversal applies to their case, should check the current status of their file with IRCC before taking any action. This article reports a policy reversal announced publicly; it does not assess individual eligibility or the validity of any specific document.

Readers seeking definitive information on their own situation should consult the official IRCC channels and, where necessary, a licensed legal professional. Rules on citizenship by descent, proof-of-citizenship applications, and document requirements have changed repeatedly, and the government's published guidance is the authoritative reference for what applies today.